Freetown Christiania

The sort of commune of Freetown Christiania in Denmark may not be what it used to be, but it's still true to many of its original values. Learn all about this unique neighborhood today. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 1:38Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

• 1:47Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too. And we're going on over to foggy Copenhagen town.

• 1:56Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for this episode of Stuff You Should Know.

• 1:59Speaker 02

  That's right, because we are talking about a little sort of village, neighborhood anarchist commune in Copenhagen, Denmark, called Freetown Christiania, which was founded in 1971, and it has a pretty interesting story.

• 2:17Josh Clark?

  Well, yeah.

• 2:18Speaker 02

  And continues to.

• 2:19Josh Clark?

  You had me an anarchist squatter commune.

• 2:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:24Josh Clark?

  So it is. I think there's something like 800, 900 residents there, depending on who you ask. And they just basically showed up, they set up shop in this former military base, and they said, "We're not leaving. This is a free territory." And in fact, when you walk into Christiania, I just want to say Christiana so bad.

• 2:44Speaker 02

  I know, me too.

• 2:45Josh Clark?

  That extra "I" just throws me off, but it doesn't matter, because I'm foreign to this. I'm foreign to the people of Denmark, so I will say, I will just deal with it, right?

• 2:55Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 2:55Josh Clark?

  At any rate, when you walk into Christiania, there's a sign that says you are now leaving the European Union.

• 3:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, pretty cool. So the backstory here is in the 17th century, that's the 1600s, by the way, in Copenhagen, they built a big fortress and some ramparts there to, you know, as protection, obviously, because that's what ramparts are. And in the 1830s, they built an artillery barracks there. They grew over the course of the 19th century, but then, in the 1900s, Denmark was like, "You know what? No one's gonna come after us. We're Denmark. Everyone pretty much likes us, so we don't need this kind of presence here." And so in 1916, the southern part of the base was closed and actually like converted by the country into a park. And then in 1961, parts of the ramparts on the

• 3:47Speaker 02

  northern end were transferred to the public. And then about six years later, between 67 and 71, they finally, the military got out of it altogether, and there was a completely abandoned military base there by 1971.

• 4:01Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So, I mean, and it's pretty decent size. Part of it's a park, so it's alluring. It's in the middle of essentially downtown Copenhagen.

• 4:13Josh Clark?

  So it's kind of like attractive to people, you know, it's not out in the middle of nowhere. It's like right there. Let's do something with it. And there is a neighborhood right next to it called Christians hav- Christians havnen, Christians haven, if you anglicize it. And they apparently, the parents there kept tearing down the security fences to allow their children to go in and play in this abandoned military barracks.

• 4:41Speaker 02

  You know, I actually looked up the V in Denmark and how you treated that thing.

• 4:46Josh Clark?

  Did I butcher it? Is that how I treated it?

• 4:47Speaker 02

  Well, I don't know, because I bet, I bet you're probably right, but what the internet said was that the V, and I'm sure someone can write in and let us know, that the V is pronounced like a V when it's in the front of a word, but is treated as a W when it's in the middle or rear of a word.

• 5:06Josh Clark?

  Okay, so let me try this again. Christians havnen.

• 5:10Speaker 02

  Maybe that's how they pronounce it. I don't know. I'm actually, I'm genuinely curious because that's always thrown me.

• 5:15Josh Clark?

  Christians havnen, that's what I'm going with.

• 5:17Speaker 02

  All right, that's what I'm going with too.

• 5:20Josh Clark?

  Okay. Well, anyway, it's a neighborhood and they tore down the fence and apparently the local authorities, I think the military at first and then the government kept building the fence. They're like, this is to keep you out. Stop tearing it down. And the parents in the neighborhood said, never. And they kept tearing it down. And finally, the government just gave up and just left it to them to let their children play.

• 5:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it became a kid's playground. In October of 1971, there's a guy named Jacob, oh, here's another B. I'm going to say Lugwigsen.

• 5:51Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 5:52Speaker 02

  If the internet is correct. And he is the, or was then the editor of a, actually, it turns out it's the most popular kind of counterculture rag in Denmark called the Hård Bladet.

• 6:07Josh Clark?

  It means new leaf.

• 6:08Speaker 02

  Oh, I saw it meant the main paper.

• 6:11Josh Clark?

  Oh, the main leaf. That's what I saw.

• 6:13Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 6:16Speaker 02

  I like new leaf too, because you can turn those over and good things happen.

• 6:19Josh Clark?

  That's what I thought.

• 6:20Speaker 02

  So he was the editor of that thing. He needed some, you know, some content to put in there one week. And so he and some of his buddies went and did, you know, kind of a fun little, hey, we're going to take over this old barracks. And so they did an article, they took pictures of them like having picnics and having fun and waving around air rifles. And, you know, you'll have to remember, this is just after the military had left it. So it's very much like an anti-war sort of little fun piece they were doing. And in the article, he said, civilians have taken over the Forbidden City, except he said it in the language there.

• 6:57Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And he also, in this, the article that he wrote to accompany it, he said, hey, there's a bunch of different things we could do with this old military base. But there's a housing crisis right now. The prices of apartments and rents and all that are really, really high. So young people are getting forced out of the city or can't move to the city. Let's turn this into affordable housing. And he said, and by affordable housing, I mean just free. Come build your house here. Let's turn this into an anarchist compound. And they, I think the local colorful community answered the call pretty much immediately.

• 7:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, you put out a call for anarchist commune free rent and doesn't matter where you are in the world, you're going to get some people knocking on your door pretty quickly with their patchouli and their hacky sacks. And they were all in, certainly in Denmark. As far as the name, Christiania, there's a bunch of stories. It could have been named after the king who commissioned the barracks, or maybe a twist on that neighborhood that you talked about, the Christian show. Or maybe Oslo pre 1925. So no one can quite pinpoint exactly why it was named Christiania, but that is what it was so dubbed.

• 8:11Josh Clark?

  Right. And that's what it's still dubbed today because it is probably the most successful anarchist squat in history.

• 8:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure.

• 8:20Josh Clark?

  It's been around for 70 years, or no, 50 years.

• 8:24Speaker 02

  Hey, buddy, I was born in 71.

• 8:26Josh Clark?

  Sorry.

• 8:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's been around as long as Chuck and Chuck's been around. So it's pretty impressive.

• 8:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's 55 years old. Let's just say it. Like you said, it was, I don't know if you said it, but they had a pretty good start there because, you know, it was just abandoned by the military in 1971. So it's not like it was falling apart or anything like that.

• 8:47Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 8:48Speaker 02

  It wasn't like fancy, but the buildings were all pretty great and they had electricity and running water. And as they got going, it wasn't, it wasn't like, hey, let's get together and be a community. It was just like, hey, you can come here and do whatever you want. But one thing I love about people is when you get enough people together for a period of time, they don't like too much chaos and they all tend to come together. I feel like maybe it doesn't always work out, but initially they feel like they all seem to come together and say like, hey, let's get like organized a little bit.

• 9:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's very Hobbesian.

• 9:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:26Josh Clark?

  And the point of that is, is that these, this group that started out as an anarchist commune, or not even a commune, I guess, just a bunch of anarchist squatters formed an anarchist commune. Like you said, they came together, they started making rules because even anarchists love rules.

• 9:43Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 9:44Josh Clark?

  The first rule was no violence, which is a pretty good first rule. And that was the only rule for quite, quite a long time, actually. And the, the way that these anarchist squatters who lived in Christiania enforced the rules was through like social pressure, exclusion, shunning, they, they policed themselves, right? So if you, if you did commit violence, you would be forced out of this, this neighborhood one way or another. And that was essentially one of the first things they came together to do was to kind of self-police. And then the second thing they came together to do was to take care of the trash. Because there are two things that people do in any situation, especially when there are no rules.

• 10:29Josh Clark?

  They'll fight and they'll generate garbage and just leave it places.

• 10:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. So they said, hey, you know, that was literally like the first thing they did is they formed a team, a garbage team to deal with the waste.

• 10:41Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 10:41Speaker 02

  Uh, businesses started to open up a little bit and it didn't take long, within a few years, kind of like by the mid seventies, it was its, you know, own little society in there. They had communal baths that they built, they had cafes, they had shop collectives, they had a kindergarten, they had a theater, a few theaters, I think, but the largest is the Gray Hall, which is still there today. I think I looked up the capacity, it looks like it seats about fifteen hundred people.

• 11:08Josh Clark?

  Oh, wow.

• 11:09Speaker 02

  And they've had some, like Bob Dylan played there, Metallica and Rage Against the Machine both played there.

• 11:14Josh Clark?

  Uh, so did No Effects, Morrissey, Prodigy.

• 11:17Speaker 02

  Did Morrissey show up, though?

• 11:19Josh Clark?

  Probably not.

• 11:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:20Josh Clark?

  He was scheduled.

• 11:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:22Josh Clark?

  Um, and I saw Steve Ignorant from Crass played there, too.

• 11:27Speaker 02

  Uh, who's that? I don't know that.

• 11:28Josh Clark?

  Crass, the punk band Crass?

• 11:30Speaker 02

  I've never heard of them.

• 11:32Josh Clark?

  Yes, you have. I've talked about them before. And I know you listen to everything I say.

• 11:38Speaker 02

  All right, so Christiania was, obviously, I think they had their, their motto at first was "Black sheep from all classes unite." And they attracted a lot of artists, obviously, early on, and still, the place is kind of teeming with art. If you, you can just look up pictures, or you can go on YouTube, and there are quite a few YouTube videos of people just doing like a little walking tour of Freetown Christiania. And it's, it's awesome. It looks like, you know, there's murals everywhere. They started hosting plays and musicals at, at the Gray Hall over the years. And it's just sort of a lovely place if you're into art, you know, any kind of visual or musical art.

• 12:20Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I think I said there were about eight hundred to nine hundred residents. I saw about a hundred and fifty of those are kids. And there are children who are raised, like you said, they've established kindergartens there. And there's a guy named Lucas Forschammer. He's the lead singer of a group, a band called Lucas Graham. And they sing in English, I think they're big-ish. From what I saw, it's kind of pop country, almost. He was born and raised in Christiania, and I was reading a Rolling Stone article with him, and it was really interesting. And, because he seems very mellow and nice and open, but one of his quotes was that he learned how to mix a Molotov cocktail before he learned how to mix a Long Island iced tea.

• 13:04Speaker 02

  Wow, which is interesting because they generally, I mean, we'll talk about when things got a little violent, but they're a peaceful people.

• 13:12Josh Clark?

  They are, but they also, you know, the cops show up whenever they want. And this is like a group of anarchist squatters and they don't really like police presences. And yeah, so it's a, there's this real undercurrent under this whole story because the, there's, it's a generally positive story, but you also can't forget, we're talking about anarchists squatting in the middle of a modern city and being pressured from outside and pushing back on that pressure in ways that, you know, you can't forget.

• 13:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. So I think we sort of teased a bit of a dark side. And why don't we take a break and we'll talk about another type of person who moved to Christianity right after this.

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• 17:38Speaker 02

  All right, so we mentioned that lots of like cool, free spirited artists moved to Christianity and put on plays and musicals and painted walls and did all kinds of fun stuff, opened shops and cafes. But also, that became the, what was known as the Greenlight District, where even though marijuana was illegal in Denmark, they would sell drugs there, mainly pot. And it was called Pusher Street. They sold, the street where they sold the drugs was, ended up being called Pusher Street. It was generally, like I said, selling weed and hash, not the biggest deal. But anytime you had that kind of thing, you know, somebody will come in wanting heroin, or acid, or you know, whatever, you name a drug. And harder drugs

• 18:21Speaker 02

  did kind of come in, and it got pretty out of hand, and they had a lot of problems with the cops and eventually gangs over the years.

• 18:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they did, because I mean marijuana is not, recreational marijuana was not, and I think still is not, legal in Denmark. So this is like, flagrant open selling of hash in particular, and because this is a black market, the people who are willing to kind of step up and, you know, offer those services or those products are criminal elements. So those gangs, in particular, the, how are we gonna say this, the BS Motorcycle Club?

• 18:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, everyone knows what that is. We don't cuss on this show, but that's, that was one of their names.

• 19:04Josh Clark?

  And then the, the world famous Hells Angels.

• 19:07Speaker 02

  Hmm, I think you mean the H E double hockey sticks angels.

• 19:09Josh Clark?

  That's right. Thank you. They, those two gangs, ended up trying to take over Pusher Street. And there was actually a gang war from 1983 to 1986 between those two gangs, and a lot of it played out on Pusher Street. Now, like you said, the people who lived there are pretty much peace-loving, they're self, self-governing, they're just generally mellow people.

• 19:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:38Josh Clark?

  And now all of a sudden, there's motorcycle gangs at a war in the middle of your, of your town. And I saw there was a, an article by, I think a guy in Vanity Fair, of all places, about this. And he said, if you want to imagine Pusher Street, imagine a quaint little small town with a strip mall going right through the middle down Main Street with 40 liquor stores on it.

• 20:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:04Josh Clark?

  That's essentially what he said this is like. So this just basically developed. And remember, these people didn't like plan Pusher Street. It just started to happen. And then it got out of hand, certainly out of their hands, because they're anarchists. They can't call the cops because they don't believe in that kind of stuff. They can't stick the government on these people. They don't believe in that kind of stuff. So they had to do whatever they could to kind of try to keep this element out as much as possible. And they really had a hard time with it for decades.

• 20:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, one of the other rules that they eventually brought in was that you can't wear gang colors. I think by 2004, supposedly or reportedly, up to 25% of Christianity was reliant on the drug economy. And that same Vanity Fair article said that Pusher Street had the biggest hash market on the planet. And said it basically had 40 different stalls selling 40 different brands of hashish. And the cops in 2016 estimated that the drug trade on Pusher Street was worth about 100 million American dollars a year, or 1 billion kroner. So it was like that way for decades and decades. There was violence. There was

• 21:12Speaker 02

  at least one killing. I think the cops in 1987 found a dismembered body under the floor of one of the gang's hangouts. And there was just a lot of push and pull over the years with the police trying to rid that scene from there. And certainly the people, you know, like most of the people on the inside wanting it gone.

• 21:32Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I mean, there were like, there were, I think the, the Hells Angels eventually overpowered the BS Motorcycle Club to the point where they folded because they kept carrying out broad daylight hits on the BS Motorcycle Club's leaders. And one of those took place at Christianity. As recently as 2023, there was a fatal stabbing, fatal shootings in 2021 and 2022. There was a

• 22:01Josh Clark?

  Shooting that injured three people, one of whom was a cop. So you can imagine like if if there's certain liberal vanguards of Danish society, they're like, let them live, let them stay. This is an experience, a social experiment. The cops in Copenhagen hate Christiania and are just, I get the impression, pull their hair out over the idea that this is just allowed to continue, especially when cops start getting shot and other people get murdered in broad daylight in this place.

• 22:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. I mean, they had in 1992, like an 18 month campaign to get all the drugs out of there. That didn't work. At one point they were patrolling 24/7. There is in 2004, they had built, the cops had built a Pusher Street replica at their training facility. So they could literally train for like exactly how to handle that area. And there was a song even that the 4th District Police Department wrote a song about the dealers that had the line, clear out Christiania. Take the S down. They will never, never smoke a joint again. That's what happens when cops write songs, by the way.

• 23:11Josh Clark?

  Right, I know. They also, in 2022 alone, they raided Pusher Street 100 times.

• 23:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:20Josh Clark?

  And they kept bouncing back, it kept bouncing back. I saw that even though they didn't call the police, this was somebody who was explaining it on Quora. I'm not quite sure what their their bona fides are.

• 23:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:36Josh Clark?

  So take this with a grain of salt, but they seemed to not be quite sensationalist. They said that at one point, the residents of Christiania essentially baited a police raid is how they put it. They, I'm not quite sure, but they did something that they knew would attract the police. They knew it was coming and so they warned everybody who lived in Christiania about it. And they didn't warn any of the dealers on Pusher Street to basically use the cops to get these guys out of Pusher Street. So that's, I guess, one tactic you could possibly use if you're not willing to call the cops. But they, they also themselves would go disassemble these stalls. They, they would as a group stand up to the Hells Angels in the BS Motorcycle Club

• 24:16Josh Clark?

  and, and push them out. But even if the cops were doing it, if the residents of Christiania were doing it, it did not matter for decades. They would come back and they would sell hash and make money and essentially intimidate the people who live there.

• 24:30Speaker 02

  That's right. And they even said, never mind. That was a terrible joke. I'm not even gonna say it. But in 2024, they finally, finally, this was just a couple of years ago, dug up Pusher Street. They literally dug up and got rid of that street altogether and got everyone out of there. And they, I think Copenhagen announced plans to build a pub, some public housing on where Pusher Street used to be. So, you know, there's like local crafts and stuff being sold on Pusher Street now. It remains to be seen if the drug trade is gonna come back, but hopefully that did the trick and it's out of there.

• 25:05Josh Clark?

  And one of the other things I saw, or actually two other things that Christiania residents did over the years to, um, to keep drugs out as best they could. The first one I think came in the late 70s when heroin started to make a real appearance. And they were like, you know what? We don't want heroin here. We don't want hard drugs. You wanna drink? You wanna smoke hash? You wanna smoke pot? Whatever. That's fine. But we as a group are gonna say, we don't want heroin here. So they essentially forced out the heroin dealers. And they said, you heroin addicts, if you wanna stay, stay, but you have to quit heroin. You have to go into treatment.

• 25:44Josh Clark?

  And get this, they said, we're going to test your urine randomly to make sure that you're staying clean. And if you're not, we're gonna force you out. And I was like, I looked into how they did that. And apparently there was a resident who could detect heroin in urine with just one tiny sip.

• 26:06Josh Clark?

  At any rate, they really did drug test people. That was the first time they did it. The second time, they appealed to the public and they said, help save Christiania. Buy your hash somewhere else. So they were actually actively trying to keep people from buying hash in Christiania, which apparently is supposedly not actually cool to do, but it's such a tourist spot and tourists just will go buy hash whenever they can out in broad daylight, that it was just thriving for decades.

• 26:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I think they said they get in the like peak vacation summertime. They get like as many as 10,000 people touristing that area every day.

• 26:44Josh Clark?

  For sure.

• 26:44Speaker 02

  So it's a very busy area, but it seems like they've eradicated the drugs, at least for now. So their relationship with the government over the years is, um, that's sort of been up and down. And we'll talk about all that right after this.

• 27:12Josh Clark?

  If you own a home, you already know stuff breaks. It's not if, it's when. And somehow it's always like the AC in July or the fridge right after you go to the grocery store. That's why you always hear people say they don't make appliances like they used to because it's kind of true.

• 27:27Speaker 02

  That's right. Good thing there's American Home Shield with an AHS home warranty. They can help fix major home systems and appliance breakdowns like your AC, plumbing or fridge. And if they can't repair your covered item, they'll replace it no matter how old it is.

• 27:40Josh Clark?

  And that's huge because fixing an AC can cost a lot. Like, hey, kids, our vacation is canceled a lot. Plus, as a benefit to select plans, you can get real time video help from live repair experts to troubleshoot home hassles at no extra cost.

• 27:54Speaker 02

  Listen, everybody, homeownership is already stressful enough. No need to upset your wallet. So check out American Home Shield now and get 20% off any plan at ahs.com/sysk and see promo details. See ahs.com/contracts for coverage details, including service fees, limitations and exclusions. American Home Shield, don't worry, be warranty.

• 28:21Josh Clark?

  You know, eating is a huge part of our lives. It fuels us, it brings us together, and it's one of life's great pleasures. But once a meal's over, we don't think much about what happens next unless something starts to feel off. Because what we eat and how our bodies respond to it is complicated.

• 28:37Speaker 02

  That's right. From the very first bite, food kicks off a chain reaction, signals moving between the gut, the brain and the immune system. The constant back and forth we can't see and often don't fully understand. So we want to introduce to you Eating Interrupted, a new podcast from I Heart Ruby Studio. It's hosted by longtime journalist and Crohn's patient Cynthia McFadden. Eating Interrupted explores everything from food allergies and intolerance, and why they seem to be on the rise, to how digestion changes as we age, and what it's really like to live with a chronic GI condition.

• 29:05Josh Clark?

  Through personal stories and expert insight, listen in to unpack what it means when your body doesn't always respond to food the way you expect, and what science is now revealing about why. Listen to Eating Interrupted on the iHeart app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 29:24Speaker 03

  First thought is like, wow, how are we going to do all this?

• 29:27Josh Clark?

  Hey, this is Josh and Chuck from Stuff You Should Know.

• 29:30Speaker 02

  That's Alan Goya, planning engineer at AT&T, and he's talking about Intuit Dome, home of the Los Angeles Clippers, where every seat, screen, phone, and transaction is connected with AT&T fiber and 5G, redefining the fans' experience, and Alan's master plan made it all possible.

• 29:46Speaker 03

  It was going to rival anything that was already built, and that takes quite a bit of people and different teams to all be on the same page.

• 29:54Josh Clark?

  That includes field services manager Drexel Jones. His team made sure it all came together and held up on game day.

• 30:00Speaker 04

  Through what Alan's whole crew designed, we connected the event visitors to the world.

• 30:05Speaker 02

  And after years of hard work and collaboration, it was opening night.

• 30:09Speaker 04

  To actually see the whole stadium light up and data's flowing is a beautiful thing.

• 30:13Speaker 03

  What the fans' experience is incredible. It gave me a lot of pride.

• 30:17Josh Clark?

  AT&T, connecting fans to what they love.

• 30:20Speaker 05

  Connecting changes everything. AT&T.

• 30:37Josh Clark?

  So Chuck, you were saying that the government has had a love-hate or lenient, not-so- lenient relationship with Cristiano over the years, right?

• 30:48Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 30:50Josh Clark?

  How?

• 30:51Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, you know, they came in and took over a military base. They were building fences and they were getting torn down and sort of like, yeah, you can have a playground. And then, okay, you can live there. And, you know, I think as it started to build, there was just some raised eyebrows. But they weren't causing a lot of trouble, so they let them go. And by 1972, the government's official stance was like, all right, this is a social experiment and let's see how it goes.

• 31:17Josh Clark?

  Right. So you think, oh, that's great. They're going to leave us alone. Nope. The next year, the government was saying like, we're not sure about this social experiment thing. Everybody needs to leave by April 1st, 1976. And the people of Christiania did not take that sitting down. They sued the Danish government, they protested. The courts ruled against Christiania over and over again. But the, despite, you know, legally being able to go in and clear everybody out, the Danish government just would never go that far. They threatened to, they came up with plans, they came up with compromises, but they never went so far as to just go in and remove everybody.

• 31:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, they've, they've threatened eviction and like had official eviction decrees and then revoked. But yeah, like you said, they, I think it would be, it was so well known by that point. It would be a really bad look for the government to go in and, you know, rip fam, like literal families out of there. That were basically doing pretty good. I mean, from what I saw, the only kind of downside was the hash trade that went on there for so long, and that was just in one localized area.

• 32:27Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and that seems to be how the government and the police in particular really kept the, the heat on the residents of Christiania. That, like you said, that seemed to be the only real problem with it. I've seen, if you remove that whole drug trade, the, the crime in Christiania is very, very low.

• 32:47Josh Clark?

  So regardless, because nobody could get a handle on the drug trade in 1989, the government actually passed what they called the Christiania Act. It said, "You guys can stay, but you're going to have to work with us a little more. Pub owners are going to have to start getting liquor licenses. We're going to need to certify your kindergarten teachers." Stuff like that, right? Like, there had to be some sort of governmental intervention. Their kids have to actually go to government schools outside of Christiania. There is just more involvement that the government insisted on.

• 33:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, a couple of years before that, in 1987, they said, "All right, the new plan is you can stay here, but we're going to divide up this area. And the neighborhood is going to be rezoned into two areas. The military ramparts, where a lot of your homes are, is going to be a conservation zone, and you're going to have to move out eventually. And then the second area is what we're going to call the urban zone, and you can basically stay there. And then in a couple of years, they announced all the plans just to make things a little more official."

• 33:54Josh Clark?

  Right, and it stayed that way for a couple decades. And then 2001, the government's like, "Just forget that. Forget it again. We're going to evict you guys."

• 34:02Speaker 02

  So finally, in 2011, the government in Denmark said, "All right, you guys can keep doing your thing, but you've got to buy this land. Like, we've got to get something out of it." And that was a tough nut to crack for the residents there, because, first of all, like, they didn't have that kind of dough. And second of all, that was like, not what they were all about. Like, individual property ownership wasn't their jam. And so a lot of them were turned off by the whole idea of kind of owning that. But then I think they saw the writing on the wall, which is like, "Well, this is, would allow us to stay at least."

• 34:39Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 34:39Speaker 02

  So they raised the money. They didn't, you know, go out and buy individual parcels of land. They set up a foundation that would cover all of the land that they needed. And they raised the dough. They raised 12.5 million kroner, and that was enough to buy about a quarter of that land and then pay rent for the rest of it.

• 34:56Josh Clark?

  Yeah, get this, they also took out bank loans, which can't you see them like showing up with like their hair kind of parted and like styled as best as they can, but they're still wearing like their leather vest with the anarchy symbol painted on the back.

• 35:10Speaker 02

  I mean, that's the movie version.

• 35:12Josh Clark?

  Right. So the, the way that they got around that private ownership thing was they pooled everything together and they bought it collectively. So Christiania itself owns the land that these people live on. The people pay rent to the community. They also pay essentially a HOA fee of something like 176 kroner, I think, or dollars worth a month.

• 35:40Speaker 02

  Well, 1350 kroner. Well, see, that's the trade off is the rent is about $4.67 a month, American.

• 35:48Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 35:49Speaker 02

  But the, the maintenance fees are 196 a month. So they're basically saying like, hey, you can live here for almost nothing, but it still costs money to run this place and you're all going to pitch in for that.

• 36:00Josh Clark?

  Exactly. Right. So that's actually a pretty good workaround. If you're an anarchist and you need to make a deal with the capitalist devil, that's about the best you can hope for. So the government was like, well, it's your land now. Okay, we can't do anything, but that's about a quarter of the land. There's still a bunch of land left. And if you don't buy this, we're going to build public housing. That seems to be the threat ironically that the government now uses over Christiania is we're going to build housing that is open to the public and you're not going to have any say about who moves in. Because over the years, in another great stroke of irony, the people of Christiania have gotten extremely selective of who moves in.

• 36:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, you have to do an interview now to move in. It used to be like they would just accept anybody, but you know, they got more organized. I think there are 14 different neighborhood groups there now. And, uh, you know, there's a lot of.

• 37:00Speaker 02

  I think it just got a little more complicated as time went on. Like, there has to be consensus for changing even very minor things, like changing out the windows of a building. I think the New York Times did an article on it that said it was like an out of control condo association. And, you know, like I said, you have to go through an interview process just to live there now. So I think sort of the idyllic days have come and gone, but from what I've read about just contemporary articles now, it seems to still be kind of a great thing for people who live there.

• 37:32Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure. Like, there's a sewer system. Like we said, garbage collection's been there a long time. They have recycling centers. They have the gray hall. There's cafes, bistros. There's just a lot. There's like a, it's a city. It's like a little city that was self-built and also self-governed. They also, Chuck, have their own currency. The loon, L-O-O with a slash through it, the metal O, N, which means the wage. It's apparently equal to about 50 Danish kroner. And it's a minted coin made of copper.

• 38:11Josh Clark?

  I could not find where they have it minted, but they have minted currency in Christiania. There's a pot leaf and a snail on one side.

• 38:21Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 38:22Josh Clark?

  On the other side, it says Free Town of Christiania and live and let others live.

• 38:27Speaker 02

  Wow, that's pretty nice.

• 38:29Josh Clark?

  But they have minted coins. How?

• 38:32Speaker 02

  Well, you just, you can get a coin minted.

• 38:34Josh Clark?

  I can't. I have no idea where to go get a coin minted, and I don't even know how to begin to find out.

• 38:42Speaker 02

  We could get a coin minted. There's like podcasts and people do like challenge coins and stuff all the time, so it's a service you can have.

• 38:48Josh Clark?

  Well, are my eyes open now?

• 38:51Speaker 02

  You've never gotten a challenge coin from someone, or?

• 38:53Josh Clark?

  I don't even know what that means.

• 38:55Speaker 02

  Well, it's like, not even, I think there are other names for them too, but you can get like a coin made. Uh, like Ben and Adam, I think for Greatest Generation had coins made.

• 39:06Josh Clark?

  Well, they didn't give me one.

• 39:08Speaker 02

  And you could give them to people. Uh, my, my brother-in-law in the Marines, they got a, a coin minted for his, I was about to say graduation, his retirement. And so he gave me one of those coins. So it's a thing.

• 39:20Josh Clark?

  That's awesome. Um, will you give me a coin?

• 39:23Speaker 02

  Sure. I'll just hop on over to Coins R Us and input my, what do you want? I'll have Momo on one side and Yumi on the other.

• 39:31Josh Clark?

  Perfect.

• 39:32Speaker 02

  And maybe like a, like a palm tree and a Georgia peach.

• 39:35Josh Clark?

  Can you put them both in profile and make them look like queens?

• 39:40Speaker 02

  Well, they already do.

• 39:41Josh Clark?

  Okay, great.

• 39:42Speaker 02

  Shouldn't be too hard.

• 39:42Josh Clark?

  That's a great coin, man. Thank you. Uh, let's see, what else? Oh, um, I talked about how there are only a couple of rules to start and the first one was violence. The second one was no hard drugs.

• 39:53Speaker 02

  No hard drugs.

• 39:54Josh Clark?

  As the gangs got, um, more, became more and more of a problem, uh, you couldn't wear gang colors.

• 40:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:01Josh Clark?

  No stealing, no bulletproof vests. And that's actually a pretty grim rule.

• 40:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. You get shot, you're gonna die.

• 40:08Josh Clark?

  Exactly. Take it like a man. Uh, and guns and knives, that was all part of one rule.

• 40:13Speaker 02

  And no running.

• 40:14Josh Clark?

  No running. That's right. Why?

• 40:17Speaker 02

  Uh, they said that running causes chaos or panic or something?

• 40:20Josh Clark?

  Panic, yeah.

• 40:21Speaker 02

  All right.

• 40:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And they, they were saying that, that usually indicates that it's a police raid and so other people are gonna start running too. So don't run, just walk.

• 40:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, lifeguard rules.

• 40:31Josh Clark?

  Exactly. So the, the current state of Christianity is exactly the same. They managed to get, um, Pusher Street closed down, or at least they got the pushers out of Pusher Street. Uh, that public housing is still on the offing. I think it's supposed to start in 2029 and the, the neighborhood's very divided about it. Some people are like, no, we want to know who's moving in here. We want to vet who moves in here. Um, and we don't want, you know, 300 public houses, uh, built in the middle. I think they were gonna build it in the middle, like right down Pusher Street to kind of make it so Pusher Street never comes back.

• 41:09Josh Clark?

  The other, um, faction, I guess, is like, no, this is actually great because we need affordable housing. Copenhagen is very, very expensive still. So this is gonna bring like younger people and artists and, and allow people to kind of move in and we need that kind of new blood too.

• 41:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure.

• 41:27Josh Clark?

  So I talked about different factions, right? There's this author who, I think back in 1981, he's a Christiania resident, but also a scholar, and he wrote a book, Borges Madsen is how I'm going to say his name.

• 41:42Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 41:43Josh Clark?

  And he essentially divided the, the, the population of Christiania into three socio-economic, or essentially three cultural strata. One was the top, were the activists, who he calls the holy ones. The bottom stratum was the, he called them trash. And then the middle stratum was the liberalists. And he essentially said that the liberalists came from the middle class outside of Christiania, moved to Christiania, and I get the impression we're like the least radical, the least anarchistic. And he essentially asserts, all the way back in 1981, he points to the liberalists as

• 42:25Josh Clark?

  the ones who led to this kind of normalizing, compromising of Christiania that makes it a little less radical than it originally was.

• 42:38Speaker 02

  I thought you were going to say hash users, hash makers, hash dealers, and hash haters.

• 42:45Josh Clark?

  And the hash itself. It has rights in Christiania.

• 42:48Speaker 02

  Oh, that's right. That's a group into itself.

• 42:50Josh Clark?

  So, yeah, that's the future of Christiania. You got anything else?

• 42:56Speaker 02

  I got nothing else. It's on my list to visit if I ever get over that way.

• 43:00Josh Clark?

  Oh, I can't wait to go to Copenhagen someday. I want to just go to all of Scandinavia.

• 43:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, Oslo.

• 43:06Josh Clark?

  Oslo, Stockholm.

• 43:09Speaker 02

  Everything I've heard is just great. It's just like, if you like, nice people just riding their bikes everywhere, then it's for you.

• 43:16Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure. I think Monocle magazine called Copenhagen the world's most livable city.

• 43:23Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 43:24Josh Clark?

  All right, we'll go there someday, Chuck.

• 43:26Speaker 02

  All right.

• 43:27Josh Clark?

  And I need to go figure out some other Scandinavian cities to visit too, so I can rattle them off.

• 43:33Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 43:34Josh Clark?

  Chuck said that's right, so it's time for listener mail.

• 43:39Speaker 02

  This is from Troy. Hey, guys. Been enjoying the show for a few years and I saw the Camp David episode and I had to listen right away because my dad was a captain in the Marines and stationed at Camp David from 1971 to 1973. We lived down the hill from the camp in military housing and when the president, Nixon at the time, was not there, we were generally able to use the facilities on the camp. Everyone that was allowed on the camp or in the camp had their profile with picture in the guard post and you could drive right up to the gate. At the time, I was five to seven years old and actually learned to swim in that figure eight pool. There's a picture out there of Gerald Ford and his dog by the pool. At the exact spot, I remember just going for it and jumping

• 44:21Speaker 02

  in. My dad passed away in 2019 and while going through his stuff, I found his short autobiography. I was really surprised at how candidly he described some of this because he never really talked about it that much. Below is an excerpt of his memories there and he included a really nice page from his dad that I read and it was awesome. I still have some memorabilia from the time there as well, including Camp David playing cards and a Russian clock given by some dignitaries that visited.

• 44:50Josh Clark?

  Awesome.

• 44:51Speaker 02

  Keep up the great work. And that is from Troy Boucher.

• 44:54Josh Clark?

  Thanks a lot, Troy. That's a great story. And if you want to be like Troy and tell us a personal story, especially a sweet one about your dad that has to do with one of our episodes, we want to hear from you. Send it off to [email protected].

• 45:12Speaker 00

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 45:28Josh Clark?

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• 46:09Josh Clark?

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• 46:54Josh Clark?

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• 47:00Speaker 06

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